The only thing I can suggest is that they(The Toy Makers) avoid aimming at a particular gender when they advertise and focus on what their product offers to the kids. _________________“I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator”- Richard Branson -
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If I may add my opinion to the discussion, I agree completely that gender stereotypes being forced onto children should be abolished. What does a baby doll mean? Baby dolls promote nurturing, loving, and caring qualities. Do boys not also need these qualities? Shouldn't boys be encouraged to be nurturing, loving, and caring towards their future young? We need good fathers just as much as we need good mothers. Now, on the flip side, think about a spaceship in the boys' toy aisle. What does a space ship mean? A space ship means exploration, adventure, and discovery. Do we not also need women who are adventurous and want to explore? Haven't there been some amazing women who have made some ground-breaking discoveries?

In other words, to put gender barriers between children is not only humiliating, but it also limits the positive qualities and morals that children from both genders could learn from each other.

Me and my brother and sister all played with lego as kids (we were lucky enough to inherit bucketloads of it from someone who was no longer interested in it). I haven't paid much attention to recent developments with Lego, but recently I was in a toy store to get something for my nephew and I saw that terrible bratzified pink Lego for girls. I was utterly horrified, Lego had always been deliberately unisex, and I spent the day ranting about it to anybody who would listen. I still can't understand why they would do that.

As someone who works at a toy store, this comic is horribly true. Part of my job is to offer to wrap presents, and I always cringe when people ask for "girl colors" or "boy colors". I know what they mean, and I comply, but I hate feeling like an accomplice to preconceived gender notions.

"Unleash the sex kitten inside...simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go!
Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars".

"suitable for participants of 11 years old and upwards."

Last edited by Otoh on Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:11 am; edited 1 time in total

Yeah, the girls' toys are for the girls so they can learn to submit and the boy's toys are for the boys to so they can learn to rule. I completely agree.

Now if you'll excuse me, this brony is going to check out the new Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy toys. Hopefully, I won't learn to submit too much._________________Desperately praying for a Democrat/Libertarian/Evil Overlord/Inanimate Carbon Rod I can stomach voting for in 2020.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this comic and the comments that have gone on in this thread. On one side I agree and yet at the same time disagree with just about every point that's been made in here.

First off, I was given an easy-bake oven as a kid, loved the thing. It was a great projectile to use in an emergency and I loved to use it as a shield when my younger brother started whipping toy cars at me.

Anyways jumping into this discussions quite frankly I think the toy companies can do whatever they want. What right do you, any of you, have to tell them what they should and shouldn't be making?

None.

If you don't like the toys they make, don't buy them, and raise your children to not to buy them. As much as you may rail against the toy industry they exist to satisfy a demand. They didn't create that demand in the first place, it already existed. Corporations don't care about gender bias, they care about profit. If there is a shift towards unisex toys, they'll shift. They're impassive, emotionless, and brutally cold and logical. Will they try to perpetuate a market that already exists? Yes. But if the market shifts, they'll shift as well and won't even bother looking back.

Besides, how is forcing your child to love and desire action figures and violent toys any better than forcing them to love 'girly girl' toys like easy bake ovens? It's not. Gender neutral means to accept ALL toys, not to push the children to one side or the other. So all those that are saying girls shouldn't play with the girly toys, I'm calling you all gender biased and hypocritical.

Anyways how a child is raised is up to the parent. Whether the child is raised to be unisex, or they are raised to be gender biased, that's UP TO THE PARENTS, NOT YOU!

YOU don't get to dictate how a child is raised, only the parent has that right. It pisses me off to no end whenever I see outside forces like child welfare services or fools spouting righteous BS trying telling parents they're raising their children wrong. What gives them the right to determine the proper way to raise a child? Every family has different circumstances, different views, different beliefs. No one law, rule, or view is going to fit every family so stop trying to force your own biased views down the throats of others.

Sorry about that rant but that's one of the things that really pisses me off. I wish people would keep their noses out of other families businesses. You wouldn't like it if someone came around and told YOU how to raise your child.

Finally gender bias will never really go away, and if it does it will be unnatural. There will always be exceptions, I will not deny that or feel that they should be discriminated against, but this gender segregation is very much built into our very genes. The males have almost always played the role of hunter/gather and protector of the home while the females were the ones that took care of the home while the males were away. This isn't just humans, this is virtually every mammalian species on the planet. They all act this way. Trace our ancestry back far enough and you'll come across a time when we were just as primitive as all of them.

Our very genes are hardwired to this way of thinking and feeling. Our rational minds are capable of suppressing this, but it's actually unnatural. Against the way we have been created.

What are my personal feelings on the gender bias in toys? Who cares. Quite frankly when it comes to toys and children I feel the toys the kid gets should be whatever makes them the happiest, regardless of what it is. If that's an easy-bake oven, give them the damn oven. If that's an action figure, get them the damn action figure. Ignore what gender they are. The only thing that really matters is the happiness of the child.

Last edited by Arthain on Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:12 am; edited 2 times in total

Funny i never seen a 'strip pole" in the girls toys section and my toys when i was little were toy trains and RC cars not "psycho exploder man" ( i hated diaper wearing super duper heroes ).
If there's one thing is this STRIP that's sexist assuming so much with knowing so little.

And of course the psycho bandwagon is here in force including pony-girl who's 'brilliant" refutation of a page 1 argument is "fuck you".
Amazing, i am sure they are definitely putting you on the nobel prize nominees now.

Whenever I wasn't throwing my easy-bake oven at my brother, or using it as a shield, I combined it with my legos and used it as a base. It was a fortress where the oven was the hanger-bay for my custom made star ships I had built out of legos. I had little turrets all over the top of it and I had giant wars between my lego starships with the base and the super-hero action figures, mostly G.I. Joes.

I'm amused that you would link to the Daily Mail, a newspaper who's website is notorious for publishing articles ogling teenage girls and announcing that the female offspring of celebriteis are now legally fuckable (obviously not in those terms). They've now removed the worst examples from their website, but googling for "Daily Mail All Grown Up" should find a few examples and many blogs complaining about it.

I'm amused that you would link to the Daily Mail, a newspaper who's website is notorious for publishing articles ogling teenage girls and announcing that the female offspring of celebriteis are now legally fuckable (obviously not in those terms). They've now removed the worst examples from their website, but googling for "Daily Mail All Grown Up" should find a few examples and many blogs complaining about it.

Yep, I'm well aware of how hypocritical the DM & similar newspapers are which is why I didn't quote anything from their 'Oh, isn't it shocking, it must be banned piece' The quotes in my post came from Tesco's marketing for their product.